Hannah Alderman is a young aspiring model who recently moved to New York City from Oklahoma. Moving to one of the most exciting cities in the world was a big step for Hannah towards her dream of becoming a professional model. However, when Covid-19 hit, she found herself locked into her apartment building in Brooklyn. It wasn't all bad as on her rooftop many of the building's tenants would meet in the evenings and throw parties. Hannah would go up to the roof every night and have a glass of wine... the only problem is she would not know when to stop. She soon released that she had a problem with alcohol and struggled to try and get it under control, eventually resulting in her checking into rehab back in Oklahoma. In this podcast, Hannah talks to Colm Flynn about her relationship with alcohol and the toll it took on her life, and how, with the help of others she has been able to battle the addiction and fight for a brighter future.

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Mario Salerno is a landlord like no other. After first meeting him you may think this hard-talking, body-building, tracksuit-wearing, Italian American would be as tough as nails, but as hundreds of his tenants discovered when New York was in the grip of the Coronavirus, he has a heart of gold. In April of 2020 New Yorkers were devastated when their city became the global epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic. The city that once never slumbered overnight became like a ghost town as people fled the city. For many of those who remained, life was tough as people started losing their jobs and income. In the neighborhood of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, Mario Salerno runs an auto body repair shop and garage. He is also a very successful landlord with over 200 tenants and noticing how much some of them were hurting, he decided to do what most landlords would never dream of doing. He waived the rent for all 200 tenants for the entire month of April. Conservative maths put Mario at a loss of over a quarter of a million dollars. Colm Flynn heard about his story and immediately went to interview him at his garage. After the report was broadcast it went viral and Mario became known as the 'Angel Landlord' of Brooklyn. He was invited on to the Ellen Show, mentioned on Saturday Night Live, and even invited to the White House by President Trump! One year after his incredibly generous gesture, Colm travels to New York to meet Mario Salerno to find out more about him and the story of Brooklyn's 'Angel Landlord'.

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Paddy Slattery is an Irish filmmaker and director who has just been named by IFTA (Irish version of the Oscars) as one of Ireland's top emerging talents. But growing up, it was never his plan to pursue a career in cinema. He comes from a village in the countryside west of Dublin and in 1996 when he was just 17 years of age, Paddy was the passenger of a car that was involved in a serious accident, flying off a country road and flipping a number of times. The driver and other passengers walked away with little injuries, but as Paddy was not wearing a seatbelt he was left paralyzed from the chest down. "I don't care what they say, I will walk again.", were the words he told doctors as he sat in a new wheelchair. 25 years later, Paddy says he can now fly.

Colm Flynn talks to Paddy Slattery about his incredible story, who says that when his "body switched off, my mind switched on."

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Imagine being paid to lie? Imagine having to live a lie for most of your professional career? If you forget your lies, or get them mixed up, you could be killed. This was the life that Marc Ruskin lived as a secret undercover FBI agent for almost 20 years.

The FBI generally has about 100 UC agents working full-time in the field. In the 1990s and 2000s, Marc Ruskin had the most diverse, and notorious, case list of all, and the broadest experience within the bureaucracy, including overseas. He worked ops targeting public corruption, corporate fraud, Wall Street scams, narcotics trafficking, La Cosa Nostra, counterfeiting―and gritty street-level scams and schemes.

Sometimes working three or four cases simultaneously, Ruskin switched identities by the day: Each morning he had to walk out the door with the correct ID, clothes, accessories and frame of mind for that day’s mission. Meet Alex Perez, Alejandro Marconi, and Sal Morelli, just a few of Ruskin’s undercover personas.

But what about the psychology of doing undercover work? Did Marc ever feel guilty about turning in his subjects, after getting to know them quite well over a period of time? Does he ever think he provoked them to carry out more crime in order to build his case? Do elements of these characters he had to act and live out stay with him? Listen to find out more.

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Stephen began to realize something wasn't right when noticed parts of his memory was missing. He would go for a walk with his girlfriend during the day and then realize he couldn't recall the last ten minutes - anything. He put it down to stress. But when it continued and became more frequent, added with severe headaches, he went to the doctor. After a brain scan, his doctor called him, "Stephen, you have a brain tumor."... This is the reality that is facing a friend of mine.

Stephen and I went to college together and he was always such a vibrant and fun person to be around. As we say in Ireland he was a 'character'. Always well dressed, always talking cigars, movies, and fashion.

A few years after leaving college Stephen was struck with tragedy when his mother passed away. Soon after this, he was diagnosed with having a brain tumor. Now, after two surgeries, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, Stephen is sharing his experience of how he was able to remain strong and stable throughout his life-changing ordeal.

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BONUS MATERIAL
On Easter Sunday in 1964, one of the strongest earthquakes in North American history struck Alaska with the city of Anchorage being horst hit. Amidst the destruction and despair, a voice emerged over the crackling airwaves that would go on to become one of the unlikely heroes of the disaster. Genie Chance was a local radio journalist who rushed to the station when the earthquake struck. For the next few days, she broadcast around the clock helping the dazed and confused locals find their loved ones and relayed messages of hope and encouragement. I speak with author and journalist Jon Mooallem, who just published a new book, ‘This Is Chance! The Shaking of an All-American City, A Voice That Held It Together’, about this remarkable woman and how she helped to hold the community together during their darkest hour.

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After the catastrophic disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in Ukraine in 1986, around 50,000 people were evacuated from the nearby city of Pripyat. The residents were told to take just the clothes they were wearing along with their passports, and reassured they would be allowed to return soon after. However as radiation levels were so high, the decision was made to create a 30km 'exclusion zone' around the Chernobyl power station and for the past 35 years the city of Pripyat has become a ghost town, frozen in time in Soviet 1986, and now giving way to nature.

Philip Grossman is a scientist, engineer and filmmaker, who has visited the city of Pripyat and the Chernobyl exclusion zone 14 times. He explored the abandoned buildings which are still highly radioactive in parts still today.

Colm Flynn talks to Philip Grossman about his experiences exploring the exclusion zone, as well some of the misconceptions around the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. They also talk about the overall safety of nuclear energy today.

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Lisa Murphy is 31 and from Cork in the south of Ireland, and if you met her you would be taken by her warm and bubbly personality. On the face of it she looks like a 'normal' happy young woman, living in Ireland's capital, Dublin, and having recently started a new job. But under the surface Lisa has been battling a debilitating and life-threatening condition for the last twelve years, bulimia. This condition leaves no marks on her body, or makes her look a certain way, and so most of the time it is impossible for others to tell something is wrong. But every day Lisa goes through an uncontrollable cycle of binge eating, and then purging.. over and over again. What started when she was 19 years of age, making herself get sick so she could look 'sexy' like other girls, spiralled out of control in the years that followed and Lisa found herself doing things she would never thought she was capable of.

Lisa hit rock bottom earlier this year when she attempted to commit suicide as her eating disorder was so out of control. Now she is looking for help, and has started a GoFundMe to raise money to pay for treatment at a specialised centre.

In this interview, Lisa is so honest and open about her condition and the effect it is having on her life. But please be warned, some parts of the interview are graphic and may be difficult for some listeners to hear, especially if you have been affected by an eating disorder or have felt suicidal.

I want to really thank Lisa for being so generous with her time and willingness to share her story. The insight she offers into the life of a person with an eating disorder is unique and very raw, and I know that I learned an incredible amount about a condition I knew very little of before.

Please share this interview with those you know, and support Lisa and her GoFundMe, here:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-help-our-friend-lisa?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1

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